Bearing the weight of expectation

My friend called at 1am yesterday. It was only 7.30 in the evening in Kolkata but he is a rational enough man to realise what time it was in Sydney. "Do you think we'll win," he asked. "My guess is as good as yours," I said, voice slurred with sleep on the back of a 12-hour working day. "No, but you are there," he yelled. "So?" I said, grumpily. "Find out tomorrow," I added, and slammed down the phone.

It was as though, because of my physical proximity to the turf on which this extraordinary Test was being played, my friend thought I'd know better.

It turned out that he was not alone in his conviction.

My inbox was groaning when I arrived at the SCG and logged on to my email yesterday morning. "You're so lucky to be there." Well, I am, but one has to make a living, you see.

"Congratulations!" "Great show." "Now go and win for us," and more of the same. It's called the weight of transferred expectation. And the rub-off of glory for which a generation has waited in hope, and for which it has learnt not to hope too much.

You could sense that feeling among the Indian supporters at the ground yesterday. At 3-187 (or put another way, 256 to get from 41 overs, seven wickets in hand) and Steve Waugh having majestically on-driven Murali Kartik for four, the bhangra was going full tilt in a sea of blue shirts trembling with a ripple of Indian flags. And when Ponting hit one straight back to Irfan Pathan (4-196) and the players went into the huddle that has become so much part of the team's character (like the volleyball they play before the cricket begins every morning), you could sniff the whiff that a country of more than a billion people had been waiting to inhale for so many years.

But the scent remained for only so long and then dissolved in the air of an overcast afternoon. Waugh (how could it have been anyone else in a series so loaded with symbolism?) and Simon Katich shut the door in India's face and bolted it for good measure. The opportunity had come and gone. You could see it in Sourav Ganguly's face, the anguish of being so tantalisingly close and yet as far as he had ever been, as Katich cut Kumble for another boundary and Australia neared 250.

But Ganguly, apart from his intriguingly defensive field placings in the last hour yesterday and the first session of the fourth day, has not much to agonise over. It is true that a series that might have been won has been drawn but the fact that it was - or so many thought - very much there for the taking is much to India's credit. Their charitable followers gave them a chance for 0-2. Now, they should not crib too much because they have not won it 2-1.

All through the series, since that stunning riposte in the first innings in Brisbane, India have played in a manner that they have seldom done before on tour. They have been aggressive; they have fought, ball for ball, and often had the edge; they have refused to let their resolve flag or their spirit be broken. On the other hand, they have done some breaking themselves - of notions, of egos, of reputations and of stereotypes.

However, India still have not won outside the subcontinent since 1986. And the last time they beat Australia in a series in Australia was in the dreams of schoolboys who always dream of impossible things they know would never happen for real.

But Ganguly's men have given them reason to hope that one day this side could make their dreams come true. The team has been working towards it, bit by bit, as the cynics scoffed and the doubters smirked after every stumble, for the past four years. This series has proven that they are almost there, though not quite. Not yet.

I'll keep my phone off the hook. But I suspect my inbox will collapse.

Soumya Bhattacharya is deputy editor of the Hindustan Times in Kolkata. He is working with the Herald on a Medialink fellowship.